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Guernsey Book Review and a Promised Pattern for YOU!

But my very favorite book on my summer reading list was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society………

And as you have heard over and over again, I loved it so much that I designed a colorful beanie to wear to remind me of the colorful characters in the book. It is now available on Ravelry as a free pdf download (click here).

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows begins in 1946 with an exchange of letters between Juliet Ashton, a young writer with a new book about life in wartime London, and her publisher Sidney (and his sister Sophie). I must admit, at first I was not sure I would be able to get through an entire book written in the form of ‘letters’ being exchanged back and forth between characters. The breezy letters did begin to give me a glimpse of postwar life in England and the tremendous hardships they endured during and after WWII, something those of us in the United States barely felt in comparison. But when an unexpected letter from a man in Guernsey opens up a whole different world to Juliet my whole world opened up as well and my curiosity was peaked. She learns how the Guernsey islanders survived the German occupation by setting up a literary society as a result of enjoying a prohibited meal over a fat pig. A meal over a pig?

I could enlighten you but, well….you will just have piece together what happened during the occupation through the course of letters that Juliet receives and you will, no doubt, fall in love with the island’s colorful and courageous inhabitants. I became ‘charmed and beguiled’ with the characters as I began to know them and truly was sad when the book ended.

No one can describe the book quite as well as Annie Barrows, the co-author.

My model was very reluctant to pose for me in the finished Guernsey Potato Peel Hat so I thought this last shot might appease her. My Auburn nurse wants to send a message to all my readers, “WAR EAGLE!”

Sorry Rebecca I musn’t have expressed myself properly. I didn’t want to know the ending I just meant that I best hurry and finish reading the book so I know what happens in the end. Thanks for sharing the hat pattern I’ve added it to my queue.